


the girl from inkopolis

by mistyviolin



Category: Splatoon
Genre: F/F, yeet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 14:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14916677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyviolin/pseuds/mistyviolin
Summary: Agent 3 reflects on herself, her flaws, and her experiences.Agent 8 is just cute.





	the girl from inkopolis

**Author's Note:**

> This happens every time I try to write fluff. Instead what comes out is this introspective work on the characters and tons of self-reflection. 
> 
> It must be tough, fighting a secret war when you're only 14 and losing the rest of your adolescence to agent work. 
> 
> Also, yay for Octo Expansion release tomorrow for my fellow Americans!

Agent 3 is not unfamiliar in the paths of romance. She is not a blushing maiden longing for the miracle of true love. She has loved before, and fallen out of it; sometimes she merely observes and takes note of physical attractiveness, and little more. 

Agent 8 is another story. 

Whereas 3 has grown with social norms, and has become accustomed for the most part to them (or at least, as accustomed as her nature allows) Agent 8 is an entirely different class of beast. 3 cannot entirely fault her for it, with her absent memory and little exposure to the chaos of inkling society. From their first meeting in that dismal, downtrodden subway the octoling has shown very little restraint. 

(3 remembers a specific instance where, while traveling to another zone in a subway car, 8 had begun to play idly with her longer tentacles. Upon a flustered questioning, she only tilted her head and replied "Riri, you glow.")

3 had been thrown off both by 8's claw-like fingertips drawing circles into her tentacle, and by the affectionate shorthand for her code name. ("I-It's called bioluminescence. Your tentacles glow too, Agent Eight,") after which the aforementioned's attention shifted to her own tentacles, to 3's simultaneous relief and disappointment.

She remembers wracking her brain afterwards for a similarly cutesy version of "eight" with little success. Eight would just have to do. 

Or a real name, and none of this silly Agent nonsense. But 8 seems content to call her 3 or Riri, and so 3 has elected to not divulge her real name for the time being. Doing so would cement the reality of their situation- that 3 is as much an agent nowadays as any other inkling might be. 

She hates this, and hates that she hates it. It is not so much that she is now more in the scope of normality where she once sought individuality. It is more that she has spent her whole youth on the battlefield, so unlike the friendly disputes of turf wars. Every match to her feels like a dispute between life and death. Even the more competitive ranked battles do not feel purposeful enough for her anymore, and she longs to return to those times where a bout of good fun was all that she sought. 

Instead she treads through battles like an old soldier, worn down into paranoia, lacking a directive. Something as simple as wandering Inkopolis Square has become impossible in her more anxious moods- the sounds, the smells and the worst offender, flashing neon signs weigh her limbs down like lead and short-circuits any executive function. 

It is beyond 3 how Agent 4 manages her own stress so well. Perhaps because she was older than 3 had been when tossed into the world of Octarians, sanitization and everything in between. 3 is about a year older, but Marie had caught her earlier on, and 4 had only been recruited two years later. So whereas 3 is generally more experienced in agent work, 4 is more experienced in "functioning as a living being" work. 

3 shakes her head to clear her own thoughts. Her perceived lack of purpose is not the matter at hand. The sun paints the Inkopolis skyline purples and oranges and yellows as it sets, casting a pale glow into the monorail. It has been a long day, one of many helping Agent 8 (and to an extent, Agent 3 herself) adjust to life on the surface. 

3 does not live in Inkopolis; she considered living with Marina and Pearl upon their offer but quickly learned that there is a hard limit of social interaction she has the energy for in a day. Instead, she lives in the more suburban surrounding community, quieter than the city while still within a reasonable distance. She shares a studio there with 8, who has stubbornly stuck to her side ever since reaching the surface. 

It's not a particularly long commute, about fifteen minutes by monorail, but as soon as the two had found their seats, 8 had been quick to doze off, snug against her 3's side. Her tentacles move idly as she rests, and 3's face warms when she notices one of 8's longer tentacles has curled around her own. 

The monorail car is quiet, empty. It is a beat of comfortable silence that stretches beyond its normal bounds. For a moment, time stands still. Agent 3, as she lets her gaze linger on the octoling girl beside her, feels her chest both tighten and swell. She is stricken with an overwhelming urge to smile. 

She wonders if she should be concerned with the amount of feeling she, well, feels at the given moment. It threatens to drown her, pull her under the waves but all at the same time she is far above panicking. 

Probably, she thinks to herself. But Agent 8's gentle snore, scrunched up nose as she sleeps helps her ignore the thought. 

If this places 3 within that so-called scope of normality, teetering on unremarkable, as long as 8 is along for the ride, it doesn't sound particularly bothersome.


End file.
